Oh please look at the tragic press release for Bill Donohue’s new-ish book, Secular Sabotage. Not one person—not a single graphic design intern, or PR guy, or someone at the publisher’s office—had any objection to including this blurb. Chilling. (Thank you to Wonkette Informant “Dan T.”) [Catholic League]

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s impossibly exciting news of the opportunity to pay at least $70 to hear Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton sitting in adjacent armchairs and mumble talking points in a vaguely conversational rhythm: a cancellation of that exact thing! Apparently everyone was too into it, and this is why it had to end before it began. According to some Clinton spokesperson: “This event … was supposed to be a discussion between the two former presidents, and has been cancelled because it was not being billed as such by an overeager promoter.” How dare the promoter describe the event in such a way as to attempt to convince people to attend?  [New York Post]

• Last night the Yankees baseball team won the competition that determines the best baseball team of all the other baseball teams! [New York Times]
• 600 UN staffers in Afghanistan will leave the country for a few weeks while the UN works to find them housing that will be harder to blow up. [Washington Post]
• Hurricane Ida is currently in the midst of hitting Nicaragua. It’s expected to bring with it 25 inches of rain, mudslides, all the tradition hurricane accoutrement, etc. [CNN]
• Exxon Mobil and Shell have won the World Series of receiving the rights to oil fields in southern Iraq! The Phillies did not win this either. [WSJ]
• Cash bonuses on Wall Street will be up 40% this year. [Reuters]
• Later this week, Toyota will be sending out a drivers’ mat recall, as the acceleration pedal can get caught in drivers’ mats in certain models. [Los Angeles Times]

Oh look: Michael Steele went on Lawrence O’Donnell’s Try To Make Everyone Laugh Using Just Your Clothing show. Lawrence O’Donnell’s like, “Michael Steele, on a scale from total failure to total failure, how would you rate your involvement in the NY-23 race?” Michael Steele, gloating and beaming as if his mouth has never met the words coming out of it, basically responds that it’s not like winning political races is a skill you can just study and perfect. But ho ho, sure Mr. Guy, you just yell if it makes you feel better about your own insecurities, an offering which Lawrence O’Donnell readily accepts. [TPM]

RedState’s Moe Lane, an apparent male (?!), recorded a very flattering and pithy video message for President Obama, who, you’ll recall, famously lost New Jersey’s gubernatorial election last night. It’s very important that Moe Lane videotaped himself smugly intoning the words “No, you can’t” in what appears to be a sunken house boat because of so many reasons. [RedState]

But… maybe try sucking harder? [The Corner]
(Thank you to Wonkette Operative “Ruprick.”)

Okay you guys, Michael Steele has been doing some Googling. No one panic. It’s just that, well, you’ve probably already heard about her, but… this Olympia Snowe lady? “I say, Welcome. Welcome. Each member of this party has a unique footprint. And it’s different from region to region. I can’t win in the Northeast with a candidate best suited for the South and vice-versa,” he said on teevee this morning, during which he disagreed with Tim Pawlenty’s criticism of Snowe’s liberal-ish proclivities. Oh but so anyway, because it is Michael Steele, his current M.O. is of course diametrically opposed to his public stance on this exact issue from ten months ago. MORE »

Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will simultaneously perform impressions of relevance at Radio City Music Hall, where in February they will “debate topics ranging from the economy, to foreign policy, to the current administration.” Details are still fuzzy re: why anyone suggested this in the first place, what anyone believes the stakes to be or hopes to gain from this, or what’s in it for absolutely anyone—Clinton, Bush, the audience, Radio City Music Hall, or you, simply hearing in passing that this thing even exists. MORE »

• Yesterday happened! Recall its winners: Bloomberg, Owens, Christie, various Others. [New York Times]
• It was also yesterday in Virgina too, where Bob McDonnell defeated Creigh Deeds and is therefore the state’s new governor. [Washington Post]
• The state of Maine poured rock salt on gay marriage and voted to up the medical marijuana usage. [WSJ]
• Today is the 30th anniversary of the US Embassy takeover/hostage thing in Tehran, but if today’s mass demonstrations showed anything, it’s that people don’t even need any hostages to yell about hating America. [CNN]
• Bernanke and Friends are likely to decline raising the interest rate. [AP]
• An Afghan soldier literally went rogue and just cold killed five British soldiers with a machine gun inside a police checkpoint. No cheeky Nation polemic is expected to follow. [Times Online]

Oh everyone look at Matt Drudge’s new failing meme: Obama, he’s so skinny right?, because of the exercise and the oversized t-shirts he likes to wear while exercising. Wrong. He is definitely chain smoking and throwing up all the low-calorie food he isn’t eating, and definitely not simply working out, as he is pictured doing in the photo accompanying Drudge’s story. [Drudge Report, image via The Awl]

#1 maximum news place, Newsmax, thought twice—or, you know, once—about its new article today that suggested Obama’s socialist and leftist advisers, or “pests,” should be somehow “exterminated.” The piece has since been removed from the Internet and sent to a camp in Poland. Newsmax has won the morning!